The time was a little in the past—the morning of Day 40.
“Hwaaam….”
As I opened my mouth wide, feeling the fatigue soaking through my body, Rujeu woke up beside me.
As if her power had been switched off and then back on, she looked at me with eyes completely free of weariness.
“You’re awake?”
“Yes. Fortunately, the fatigue has not accumulated.”
The submersible was still large enough for two people to lie down with room to spare, so I didn’t end up pressed right against Rujeu.
If I had, the quality of my sleep would have dropped quite a bit.
As I stared blankly outside at the submersible Sphere, the harpoon attached to it came into view.
The “Acceleration Spear” I had made and attached yesterday, on Day 39. With that, it was possible to hunt weaker deep-sea fish.
“Pii?”
“Jui, you’re awake too.”
Jui, who usually spent all day floating around asleep, was wide awake now that we were crossing over to another city.
Jui’s golden vertical pupils followed me.
But… something seemed a little different.
It didn’t look like she had gained more weight, and her behavior hadn’t changed either.
“Hmm… wait. Your crown got brighter, didn’t it?”
“Pii?”
Jui tilted her head. Well, since she couldn’t see herself, it was understandable that she wouldn’t know.
But from my perspective, the halo-like crown on her head was brighter than when I first saw it.
It probably wasn’t… a bad phenomenon. I couldn’t be certain, but the crown becoming clearer didn’t seem like a bad thing.
Maybe the ability of a ruler was getting stronger… or something like that.
In any case, I picked up the important items and stepped outside.
Today was the day we moved to another city, so shouldn’t I arm myself as much as possible?
“Hmm, should we load this one too?”
“The automated robot… well, if we take it with us, I’m sure there will be somewhere we can use it.”
Excluding the surplus food, we loaded nearly everything onto Sphere.
The automated robot as well.
I started Sphere’s engine and turned on the Gallery broadcast.
Viewers came in immediately. But… was it because of the broadcast title after all? There were about fifty percent more viewers than usual.
[Deep-Sea Escape Log, Day 40. Moving Cities.]
ㄴTruth Scholar: Are you going to a new city today?
ㄴDraw Sword Saint: I am curious what sort of monster will appear this time.
Chat messages came up as soon as I turned on the broadcast.
I feel this every time I see them, but Truth Scholar and Draw Sword Saint seem to spend most of their day doing nothing but browsing the Gallery.
Anyway, I activated Sphere’s engine.
Along with the humming engine noise, I moved the controls.
With a fierce roar, the treads rolled, and we faced the barrier.
Without the slightest hesitation, I threw Sphere toward the barrier.
Sphere passed smoothly through the force field and immediately retracted its treads.
With the engine noise falling quiet, we moved toward the next city, toward the nearest barrier.
“There aren’t many other creatures today.”
There were no moving creatures visible on the underwater scanner, nor on the screens mounted in place of windows.
As if telling us to advance toward the next city, there was no interference at all.
Because of that, we were able to arrive at the next city sooner than expected.
[The direction of the “Isolation Force Field” is changing.]
A place with the same barrier as the previous city.
Was this place isolated just like the previous city too?
My stray thoughts did not last long.
Sphere had entered the city, but we couldn’t go any deeper.
And from the moment we entered the city, my gaze was stolen by the screen.
The reason was simple. It was a scene I simply couldn’t believe was a city.
“What is this…?”
Could this really be called a city?
The view visible through the screen was nothing short of惨 horrendous.
The tall buildings that had risen high in the previous city were shattered into small fragments.
The roads were in tatters, as though they had been stabbed hundreds of times with an awl.
The only thing still maintaining the form of a building was the facility in the center.
“For now… let’s get down.”
It was difficult to clearly judge the situation through the screen alone.
I felt that only by getting out and confirming it myself would I be able to understand the ecology of this place.
“I will disembark with you as well.”
“Yeah. Jui… I think it’d be better if you didn’t come out yet.”
Jui was certainly strong, but she was still only a sub-adult.
After comforting the dejected Jui, I went outside the city with Eosollujeun.
The city I saw with my own eyes after disembarking was….
ㄴTruth Scholar: It’s惨 terrible.
ㄴHealingIsViolence: Even a ruined country wouldn’t be destroyed to this extent….
Would it end up like this if someone with immense power swung that power around as if bearing a grudge?
The city was so惨 wretched and silent that such thoughts came to mind.
The Cyclopes I usually saw were nowhere to be found here.
Instead, something else existed.
Beep. Beep.
It had a spider-like form, but it moved by hopping on three legs.
And where its torso should have been, there was a silver sphere attached.
Something closer to a machine than a living creature. That alone was wandering through the city.
“Phew….”
Letting out a breath, I hid myself from the machine-like thing and approached.
When I got reasonably close, I hid behind the remains of a building and scanned it.
-Silver Three-Legged Companion
-A creature that hops around on three legs. Caution: upon discovering a living being, it self-destructs and scatters seeds nearby.
“Self-destruct…?”
A living creature, not a machine, self-destructs and scatters seeds?
As if proving that ridiculous explanation true, it went around hopping here and there.
It would have been nice to know the power of the self-destruction, but there was no need to deliberately take that risk, so I moved right away.
After returning in the direction where Sphere was, I looked at the Companion in the distance.
Perhaps because there were no living creatures, the Companion merely hopped around, and nothing happened.
Yes, it was because there had been no living creatures until now.
Gurgle.
The sound of sticky liquid flowing rang in my ears.
When I turned my gaze there, red liquid was rising up near the Companion.
From the thing that had settled like a puddle, a sudden anomaly occurred.
An arm shot out, and a single eye rose up.
Gurgle. Gurgle.
With grotesque noises, the puddle transformed into a Cyclops.
Then, the movements of the Companion that had discovered a living creature changed.
Kiiik.
The legs that had only been springing upward began to cross over one another as it charged toward the Cyclops. Along with a twisting noise.
The Cyclops discovered the Companion and raised its hand.
Chrrk.
Its hand immediately descended, and according to the Cyclops’s gesture, a slash extended out and touched the Companion’s body.
But.
Taaang!!
Along with the sound of striking metal, the Companion approached without taking any damage at all.
The moment the Companion touched the Cyclops.
Kwaaaang!!
“Ugh!”
An explosion erupted, flashing before my eyes and shaking my body.
When the smoke cleared, the Cyclops was gone.
Tudududuk.
Only small seeds were scattered across the ground.
“…Ha. I almost died.”
If I had entered the Companion’s recognition range.
No, if it had even been sensitive to mana. I would have vanished without so much as ash remaining.
ㄴTruth Scholar: But, Aurora?
“Yes? What is it?”
ㄴTruth Scholar: That… doesn’t the road look a little strange?
Truth Scholar’s chat suddenly came up.
Just as he said, I looked at the road where the explosion had occurred, but….
“It doesn’t look like it changed.”
ㄴTruth Scholar: That’s the problem. A road that withstood an explosion of that level.
How did it end up this damaged?
At Truth Scholar’s chat, chills climbed up my body.
My survival instinct rang the alarm, and my intuition sensed the rough amount of force required to destroy the city.
Yes, now that I thought about it, that was true.
Even when the Cyclops scraped at the city with its claws, the city only received slight scratches. And even those quickly repaired themselves.
When Jui unleashed her breath, and when I fired the mana rifle too.
The city only sustained minor damage; it could never be seriously harmed.
“Then…”
Who on earth, who could have done something like this?
I had a bad feeling. The deep sea had always been this kind of place.
If there was damage, there was always a cause.
Was the culprit who did this to the city dead now?
Well, the deep sea I had seen was not such a common-sense place. Even the Cyclopes simply popped out as if self-replicating.
“I do not recommend further exploration.”
“…Yeah. I think it’d be better to go back and prepare more thoroughly.”
The current me was still weak. Even more so by the standards of the deep sea.
That was why I explored, and searched for equipment that could make up for my weakness.
I returned to Sphere and gripped the controls again.
The controls turned backward, moving for the sake of more complete preparation.
***
At the time Aurora was broadcasting.
Draw Sword Saint, the Sword Saint Haiden, was reading an urgent letter that had arrived.
With his expression deeply furrowed, he read the words again.
It was an unbelievable story.
-To the Commander of the Public Order Knights.
-I would like to begin by saying I am sorry. I did not wish to write such a letter, but….
The commander of the knights was a person whose sense of etiquette was about the same as Haiden’s.
And yet, this letter was full of all sorts of ornate phrases. That meant it was something he felt that sorry about.
To summarize the contents of the letter.
“An unidentified riot is breaking out…. And he’s leaving that to me.”
Haiden swept back his orange hair and read the text once more.
He didn’t understand. Why was this being left to him?
As he read, he found one important part.
-…The aftermath of the riot is gradually growing, and even the imperial family has taken notice. In the Empire, such a thing…
The imperial family. The place where he existed as a sword.
There was something people overlooked because Haiden sometimes acted faithfully according to his desires.
When it came to judging a situation, he could confidently say he was smarter than anyone.
Whether in a melee, or in the quiet scheming of places like this. He could see and judge every situation at a glance.
That was why he saw through the fact that the imperial family was guiding him with this riot.
“It is too minor to swing a sword, so they intend to make me drop my sword and aim for that. Is that their intention?”
After pondering briefly, Haiden rose from his seat.
If his master had released him, then it was only right to act according to that intention.
Haiden headed toward the place indicated in the letter, a place bordering the seaside.
He set his steps toward the city of dwarves.